Friday, September 19, 2014

Every Game is Broken

Recently I
have mentioned A Few Acres of Snow more than once, using it both as an example
of an innovative design, as well as a tragically flawed one. Indeed, a
specific, flawlessly executed strategy will win the game for the British pretty
much every time. There seems to be no doubt that the game is broken – so broken
in fact, that it has been given as a single example of a design that is beyond
repair. Is it however as lonely in its misery as we grew to think?

Image source: BoardGameGeek

The answer
is simple: it is not. There are many games from less known designers that would
also quickly turn out to be subpar, with either a single strategy being
prevalent, or a specific swing of luck being the force that is most influential
when tallying the final scores. Nobody seems really surprised when an
unbalanced game published by a smaller company hits the shelves. We do seem to
expect, however, that the biggest and brightest will always deliver a product
we will not be able to break.

The truth
is that deeming a game broken is a somewhat fuzzy process, dependant on a
variety of different factors. Is Munchkin broken? Is Fluxx unplayable? Many
people might say that they are, but what they are in fact expressing is their
dislike of the genre those games represent. Those games were never meant to be
balanced, the design goal was not to give all players equal chances, to provide
them with a catch-up mechanism or to ensure there is more than one way to
victory.

Image source: BoardGameGeek

The problem
gets even more complicated when we take a look at some of the German style
games, especially those simpler, family oriented ones. Take Coal Baron for
example – a rather light game with a simple and straightforward path to victory
and a few interesting mechanisms, that can still be taken apart by a player
able to optimize their every movement. How about Russian Railroads? It is a
seemingly more complicated design that can still be played according to a very simple
algorithm that, if used by one player, will make them the victor every time or,
if executed by more than one person, will hand the victory to whoever made the
first move.

The problem
is that the same may be basically said about chess. It is a perfect example of
a game that, when played by opponents perfectly executing the best strategies,
will always end in white’s victory. Does it mean that chess is broken? Again,
based on their dislikes, some people would probably say that it is, but it is
not true.

Now, the
problem with A Few Acres of Snow is a slightly different one. Due to its
asymmetry, the design favours only one side of the conflict. It still requires
perfect or near-perfect execution of the winning strategy, but with two equally
skilled, experienced opponents, winning the game might as well be determined at
the stage of randomly assigning who gets to play the British. This, again, is
not a very unique problem.

Image source: BoardGameGeek

A similar
one is easily found in the previous editions of Twilight Struggle, which
seemed to favour the Soviets (and, by some accounts, still favours them,
regardless of the fix offered in an early errata and then incorporated into the
deluxe edition). Some wargame designers are even conscious enough to offer a
simple balancing mechanism, with opponents bidding to play a specific side of the
conflict. The last game I came upon this in was Red Winter – and nobody even
suggests that it might be broken.

Again, A Few Acres of Snow seems to be further down the path of broken, as its structure makes the bidding
pointless. The winning strategy is not based on victory points, so the players
would just be buying a victory before the game starts, provided they know what
to do exactly to win the game. But to know that means to either find out by
visiting the game’s BGG profile or to be smart and determined enough to
actually discover the strategy and perfect its execution, so that any semblance
of game balance is irrevocably lost. Still, if you do not simply use other
people’s experiences, there is usually a lot of game to be had before you are
able to deem A Few Acres of Snow broken. And for most players that will mean
playing the game about as many times as one plays any other game in their
collection – especially if the collection is at least fifty to a hundred boxes strong.

Image source: BoardGameGeek

The amusing
conclusion here is that games are not broken by finding an outstanding design
flaw – they are broken because people who are too smart or too determined play
them. If not for the great following, A Few Acres of Snow would probably still
be considered a flawless design. If not for a disturbingly inquisitive presence
at my gaming table, I would probably still be able to enjoy Russian Railroads,
oblivious of the way it can be played to win every time.

It may, thus,
seem that the biggest plight of designer board games are the people who seem
the best gamers: the smart, analytical minds, able to pull a design apart and
utterly annihilate the illusion that there are many equally viable strategies
to play and win. And it may also seem that there is no game that is not broken –
and that it is more a matter of how broken any given design really is than if
it is breakable at all.

From a
design standpoint, however, the player that is much smarter than average is not
as dangerous as the average player that, for whatever reason, decides to assume
the mantle of the village idiot. This, however, I will analyze next time – for there
is even more to consider here, as not all of us gamers can be exceptionally
smart all the time, but we can sure act like half-wits whenever we damn please.
And we do, more often than we would like to admit.